An empty water jar balances precariously on her head. Her face is veiled not only to avoid the searing stares of Sychar’s society but also to shield her from the rumors of a ruined reputation.

Too many husbands have drained her nuptial well and now she attempts to fill it with another, an unbetrothed suitor. She must go now to the watering hole to draw from its depths the water to quench her parched thirst, a thirst that lies deeper than the surface of her tongue.

Slipping through the back streets, she shuffles her way out the city’s gate to fulfill her daily duty. As the sun beats down with its heaving swells of heat, she is forced to come to the well of the ancient fathers at the noon hour.

The other women choose to draw water during the cooler hours of the day, coming later to remove their veils, to relax, to laugh, and to gossip, usually about this woman.

The heat of the day diametrically differs from the chill of passion that has penetrated this shunned woman’s being. The empty water jug she now carries on her head parallels the emptiness of her heart.

She hides behind a veil of secrecy, as she tries desperately to become invisible. As she approaches the well, she peers out from behind her veil, and, seeing a man who sits on the well’s edge, her eyes meet the eyes of this stranger.

He looks deep into the longing of her soul and sees a parched and depleted well. She sees acceptance beyond anything she has ever experienced.

“Give me a drink,” he asks.

“But you’re a Jew,” she says. “Why do you ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?”

“If you only knew. I would satisfy your hollow yearning from a living well, teeming with waters of life that never run dry.”

“Oh, sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

“Call your husband to come here also,” he says.

“But, sir,” she whispers, hanging her head, “I have no husband.”

This stranger, peering into her lifeless eyes hiding within the veil, now seems to know her so well, as he recounts the depth of her past existence.

“Sir, you must be a prophet,” she says. Yet, she discerns him to be more than a prophet, for there is no hint of judgment or condemnation in his voice, only the love of the ages.

Throwing off the invisible veil over her eyes, she sees this man for who he really is and receives the love for which she has so recklessly searched. She drops her water pot by the well and runs back through the city gate to tell the others of the everlasting love she has found in the man called The Messiah.

Have you dropped all to tell others about the everlasting love you have found in Christ?

Feeling forsaken and utterly alone, Maid, in tears over her plight, sits by a spring of water, somewhere on the way to Shur (meaning a wall), where she encounters an Angel of the Lord.

Angel: “Where did you come from? And where are you going?”

Maid started says: “I am running away from my Mistress.”

Angel: “Return to her and humble yourself to her. Then, I will greatly multiply your descendants. The Lord has heard your cry of distress.”

Act 3:

Maid: You are the God Who sees.

So, she names the well: The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.

Finale:

Maid goes back where she belongs…serving her Mistress, the one ruling over her. And she is blessed with a multitude of descendants.
Personal application:
Act 1: The problem
Question 1: Have you ever had a situation that just wasn’t working out right?Question 2: Have you ever had a problem, or been a part of someone else’s problem, and you, or the other person, did something without thinking it through?
Question 3: Has someone treated you so badly that, in your hurt, you wanted to escape?
Act 2: The consequence

1): Maybe, like Sarah, you got tired of waiting on God. You tried to help Him out by acting on your own, doing something that wasn’t His plan, and you suffered overwhelming consequences.

2): Maybe, like Paul, when those around you struck out on their own, not consulting God, you got caught in their aftermath, and you felt as if you were shipwrecked.

3): Maybe, like Hagar, you ran from your situation to the wilderness, where you sat down all alone, forsaken, and cried a bazillion teardrops. Maybe you ran up against a Shur-wall.
Act 3: The application

At one time or another, we have all experienced at least one of the above three scenarios.

When circumstances become overwhelming and our heart is aching, we all want to run to the wilderness to escape our problems, whether of our own or someone else’s doing, and cry.
We might feel alone and forsaken, but are we? No. God is with us. It’s not like the song, I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City! He’s not somewhere else.

In the Old Testament, God’s name and His presence were synonymous: Jehovah-shammah, meaning the Lord is present or there. In the New Testament, it is the same; Jesus’ name is Immanuel, God with us.
God is present; He is with us. He sees our tears; He sees our heartaches; He sees our struggles.

He says, “I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.” (Josh. 1:5 NKJV)
We cannot run to a place so desolate, so forsaken, that the Lord will not find us. For wherever we go, there He is! No running away from any circumstance can ever separate us from God’s presence.
*Denouement (conclusion)

Running to your prayer closet to seek the Lord is preferable to running away from your trials. In God’s presence, you will receive His guidance, comfort, provision, love, forgiveness, joy, peace, and His grace. Whatever your heart needs.
When you sit by the well of the One Who sees you, you are filled with courage and strength to return to where you belong…to serving and submitting to the One ruling over you.

No matter where you go, what you do, what your need, or what happens to you, God is there and you will encounter Him. And you will be blessed in your returning to Him.
In your tears and your heartaches, in your wilderness times of distress, remember…

Have you ever gone from resting “in green pastures” to wandering around in the wilderness, lacking refreshment for your spiritual thirst, needing to be “beside still waters”?

Israel did. In part of their wanderings, it went like this:

*They went from Mount Hor in Lebanon to Edom, where they became discouraged.*They murmured and complained, spoke against Moses and God, “No food; no water. And we hate this worthless bread!”*God tired of their moanings and sent fiery serpents to bit and kill the groaners.*They ran to Moses and repented, begging him to pray God to take remove the serpents. And Moses did.*God commanded Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole so those bitten (who had not died) could look on it and be healed.*Next, they moved on to Oboth (meaning waterskins); then to Ije Abarim (ruins of the passers or Abarim); then pitched their tents in the Valley of Zered/Zared (osier [a type of tree] brook, exuberant in growth, lined with shrubbery); then they travelled to Arnon (rushing stream).

Their next stop…

“From there they went to Beer, which is the well where the Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather the people together, and I will give them water.’ Then Israel sang this song: ‘Spring up, O well! All of you sing to it — The well the leaders sank, dug by the nation’s nobles, by the lawgiver, with their staves.’ And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah.” (Num. 21:16-18 NKJV)

Beer: pronounced Be-ayr, an oasis rest, a well.Well: a pit, a spring.Sang: to sing, with the idea of strolling minstrelsSpring up: to ascend, rise up.Sing: to eye or to heed or pay attention, to respond, to begin to speak, specifically to sing, shout, testify, announce.

Leaders: a person of any rank or class, ruler, chief, commander.Sank: to pry into, to delve, to explore, to search for. (In most translations, digged is used in place of sank. However, it is incorrectly translated.)Dug: to dig through, to plot, to bore or open, to excavate.Nobles: inclined, generous, noble, princely.

Staves: support of every kind, sustenance, a walking stick.Wilderness: pasture, tracts of land, used for the pasturage of flocks and herds, can imply desert, also means mouth and speech.Mattanah: a gift of Jehovah, from a word meaning a present, a sacrificial offering.

God commanded Moses to gather the people together and He would give them water. In repentance, faith, and obedience to God’s commands, the Israelites dug deep beneath the surface, where water ran out of sight, where the river of blessing flowed. They reached it by songs of praise.

Their complaints brought poison…venomous snakes with bites of death, but their singing brought overflowing water…the refreshment of life.

Time to stop and ponder the significance.

When we repent of our murmuring and complaining, the Lord will lead us to our Beer. (Okay, no snickering!) Our place of rest, our oasis in the wilderness.

In our faith and obedience to God’s commands, with songs of praise, we, too, will find that flowing stream, gurgling deep beneath the surface of our most arid circumstances, trials, and heartaches.

And we will go on to our Mattanah, our gift of Jehovah. Will He not bring us to the place where we can say, “He restores my soul.” (Ps. 23:3 NKJV)

Dig deep with your praise to touch upon those rushing waters of life and blessing, for in those wilderness depths of circumstance, you will find that flowing tide. As God said, “I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen. This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.” (Is. 43:20b-21 NKJV)

Shocked. Yet honored. Placide Cappeau of Roquemaure, France, was a commissionaire of wines in 1847. Asked by the small town parish priest to pen a poem for Christmas, he was happy to share his talent with the church, even though he was known more for his poetry than his church attendance.

Traveling to Paris in a horse-drawn coach, Cappeau decided to use the gospel of Luke as his inspiration and imagined he was a witness to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. By the time he arrived in Paris, he had completed “Cantique de Noel.”

Moved by his own writing, Cappeau decided his poem deserved a melody by a master musician, so he sought the help of his friend Adolphe Charles Adams, a Jew.

Not believing Jesus to be the son of God, Adams nevertheless quickly wrote the score to Cappeau’s beautiful words. Being well received, the finished work debuted three weeks later at the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

The church wholeheartedly accepted the piece and it quickly became a favorite for Catholic Christmas services. However, when Cappeau turned his back on the church and became part of the socialist movement, and the church leaders discovered Adams was a Jew, the church suddenly denounced France’s beloved Christmas song.

Even though it was squashed, the song went underground, so to speak, because the people loved it and continued to sing it as it brought hope in their despair.

In 1855, when American writer and abolitionist John Sullivan Dwight heard these words of the Cantique…

He sees a brother where there was only a slave,

Love unites those that iron had chained.

…he decided to translate the carol into English for America and published his version of the carol as “O Holy Night” in his magazine Dwight’s Journal of Music. It found favor especially in the north during the Civil War.

Then, in 1871 in France, the legend goes that on Christmas Eve, amidst fierce fighting during the Franco-Prussian War, a French soldier suddenly jumped out of his muddy trench.

With no weapon in his hands, he lifted his eyes to heaven and began singing the “Cantique de Noel.”

After the French soldier completed all three verses, a German infantryman climbed out of his trench and answered with lines from Martin Luther’s “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.”

After this jubilant display, the fighting stopped for twenty-four hours as both sides observed a temporary peace in honor of Christmas day. The ceasing of war’s despair, if only for a short while, allowed a ray of hope.

The thought of Christmas despair at wartime reminds me of…yes, once again…another episode of the wartime M*A*S*H series.

In one Christmas episode, Charles Emerson Winchester III, a.k.a. Snootyface, is depressed, “waxing nostalgic” as he calls it, and would much rather be at home in Boston with his family gathered around the fireplace, with all “its civility.”

Unbeknownst to Charles, Radar has written to Charles’ mother, at the suggestion of Father Mulcahy, asking that she send something to make Charles feel more at home, even in his hostile surroundings, and bring him a little hope.

She sends an old toboggan cap from Charles’ youth, for which he is totally delighted. With the cap stretched over his balding head, Charles cleans out his pockets of all his cash and gives it to the Father for the orphans.

Father Mulcahy, puzzled by Charles’ generosity, asks, “Major, are you all right?”

Chuckling, Charles says, “You saved me, Father. You lowered a bucket into the well of my despair and you raised me up to the light of day. I thank you for that.”

Many have their own personal wartime at Christmas: depression, heartache, loneliness, frustration, whatever.

Do you see others drinking from the well of despair this time of year? Offer them a drink from the well of Living Waters to give them hope, to raise them up to see the light of day. To see Jesus as the Light of their day.

Maybe you have your own well of Christmas despair. What reaches down into that well and raises you up to the light of day?

Maybe you have some war waging within you. What song do you sing to still that warring?

The Father is sending you hope and encouragement from Home through the miracle of the manger, the birth of His Son Jesus.

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

O holy night, O night divine!

O night divine, indeed!

One of the most beautiful recordings of “O Holy Night” is by Josh Groban. I think it is my favorite. Enjoy…

* …all you who labor:to feel fatigue, to work hard, to labor with wearisome effort, to toil, to grow weary, exhausted, tired.

Exhaustion plagues many people after a long day’s work at a job they hate. Stress consumes the worker as the economy serves up less and less for each dollar. Everyone toils to stay afloat, to make ends meet.

What is the return for the strain of intense labor? Solomon asked, “What does a man get for all his hard work?” (Eccl. 1:3 TLB) He lamented, “All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not satisfied.” (Eccl. 6:7 NKJV)

The stomach may be full but the soul is not satisfied. The body is sapped of energy. So many are just plain wearied and tired. It hits all of us at one time or another. And just as it is possible to get weary physically, it is equally possible to get weary emotionally and spiritually.

Do you ever feel tired, overburdened, and weary?

* …and are heavy laden: to load up as a vessel or animal, to bear, something carried, to heap on.

When you encounter heavy burdens from…

* relationships that are strained to the breaking point,

* the job market being almost non-existent,

* prices on everything continuing to climb,

* family problems that loom,

* a death in the family,

* daily schedules,

* the attacks of the enemy and you feel like giving up,

…does the stress overwhelm you? Do you need a rest?

* …I will give you rest: to repose, refresh, to cause or permit one to cease from any movement or labor in order to recover and collect his strength to give rest, intermission from labor.

Work is not always laborious; it can also be fulfilling. Solomon also said, “Every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor – it is the gift of God.” (Eccl. 3:13 NKJV)

So, how many enjoy their work? How many realize it is a gift of God? Enjoyment of our labor comes much easier if we praise God for what we have, keep a positive attitude, and take a break to rest from it once in a while to avoid burnout.

Even God rested on the seventh day. Jesus got weary and rested. He took time to enjoy Himself. He attended weddings and dinners with friends. He laughed and teased and had a good time.

He also spent time in prayer to recharge Himself. He took time to slow down and be with the Father, going off to the solitude and serenity of the mountainside or the gardens to pray. One day, Jesus sat by the well of His forefathers to rest and recuperate, to quench His thirst.

What do you do before every last drop of your physical, emotional, and spiritual vitality have evaporated?

* Do you rest from your work?

* Do you take a vacation?

* Do you take a day off now and then (especially if you cannot take a vacation), just to enjoy yourself and your family?

* Do you relinquish your will, surrendering to God’s leading?

* Do you keep a positive attitude?

* Do you spend time in prayer?

When labor becomes arduous and circumstances burdensome, sit by the well of the Father, lowering your bucket into His spring of Living Water to quench your parched spirit and soul, and regain your strength and power, pausing until every thought of stress is lifted.

Rest in God’s promise, “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” (Jer. 31:25 NIV)

An empty water jar balances precariously on her head. Her face is veiled not only to avoid the searing stares of Sychar’s society but also to shield her from the rumors of a ruined reputation.

Too many husbands have drained her nuptial well and now she attempts to fill it with another, an unbetrothed suitor. She must go now to the watering hole to draw from its depths the water to quench her parched thirst, a thirst that lies deeper than the surface of her tongue.

Slipping through the back streets, she shuffles her way out the city’s gate to fulfill her daily duty. As the sun beats down with its heaving swells of heat, she is forced to come to the well of the ancient fathers at the noon hour. The other women choose to draw water during the cooler hours of the day, coming later to remove their veils, to relax, to laugh, and to gossip, usually about this woman.

The heat of the day diametrically differs from the chill of passion that has penetrated this shunned woman’s being. The empty water jug she now carries on her head parallels the emptiness of her heart.

She hides behind a veil of secrecy, as she tries desperately to become invisible. As she approaches the well, she peers out from behind her veil, and, seeing a man who sits on the well’s edge, her eyes meet the eyes of this stranger.

He looks deep into the longing of her soul and sees a parched and depleted well. She sees acceptance beyond anything she has ever experienced.

“Give me a drink,” he asks.

“But you’re a Jew,” she says. “Why do you ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?”

“If you only knew. I would satisfy your hollow yearning from a living well, teeming with waters of life that never run dry.”

“Oh, sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

“Call your husband to come here also,” he says.

“But, sir,” she whispers, hanging her head, “I have no husband.”

This stranger, peering into her lifeless eyes hiding within the veil, now seems to know her so well, as he recounts the depth of her past existence.

“Sir, you must be a prophet,” she says. Yet, she discerns him to be more than a prophet, for there is no hint of judgment or condemnation in his voice, only the love of the ages.

Throwing off the invisible veil over her eyes, she sees this man for who he really is and receives the love for which she has so recklessly searched. She drops her water pot by the well and runs back through the city gate to tell the others of the everlasting love she has found in the man called The Messiah.

Have you dropped all to tell others about the everlasting love you have found in Christ?

An empty water jar balances precariously on her head. Her face is veiled not only to avoid the searing stares of Sychar’s society but also to shield her from the rumors of a ruined reputation.

Too many husbands have drained her nuptial well and now she attempts to fill it with another, an unbetrothed suitor. She must go now to the watering hole, to draw from its depths the water to quench her parched thirst, a thirst that lies deeper than the surface of her tongue.

Slipping through the back streets, she shuffles her way out the city’s gate to fulfill her daily duty. As the sun beats down with its heaving swells of heat, she is forced to come to the well of the ancient fathers at the noon hour. The other women choose to draw water during the cooler hours of the day, coming later to remove their veils, to relax, to laugh, and to gossip, usually about this woman.

The heat of the day diametrically differs from the chill of passion that has penetrated this shunned woman’s being. The empty water jug she now carries on her head parallels the emptiness of her heart.

She hides behind a veil of secrecy, as she tries desperately to become invisible. As she approaches the well, she peers out from behind her veil, and, seeing a man who sits on the well’s edge, their eyes meet. He looks deep into the longing of her soul and sees a parched and depleted well. She sees acceptance beyond anything she has ever experienced.

“Give me a drink,” he asks.

“But you’re a Jew,” she says. “Why do you ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?”

“If you only knew. I would satisfy your hollow yearning from a living well, teeming with waters of life that never run dry.”

“Oh, sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

“Call your husband to come here also,” he says.

“But, sir,” she says, “I have no husband.”

This stranger, peering into her lifeless eyes hiding within the veil, now seems to know her so well, as he recounts the depth of her past existence.

“Sir, you must be a prophet,” she says. Yet, she discerns him to be more than a prophet, for there is no hint of judgment or condemnation in his voice, only the love of the ages.

Throwing off the invisible veil over her eyes, she sees this man for who he really is and receives the love for which she has so recklessly searched. She drops her water pot by the well and runs back through the city gate to tell the others of the everlasting love she has found in the man called The Messiah.

Have you dropped all to tell others about the everlasting love you have found in Christ?

Did Jesus get weary physically in His travels? Of course, He did. The disciple John relates one such incidence in John 4, “Eventually He came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime.” (Verses 5-6 NLT) He sat at the well of the father to rest and recuperate, to quench His thirst.

Did you ever feel like that? Thirsty? Fainting? Tired? Need recharging? Just as it is possible to get weary physically, it is equally possible to get weary spiritually.

David did. He said to the Lord, “My soul thirsts for You; my whole body longs for You in this parched and weary land where there is no water,” (Ps. 63:1b NLT) and “I reach out for You. I thirst for You as parched land thirsts for rain.” (Ps 143:6 NLT)

As Jesus thirsted and sat by the well, He spoke of the Living Water to a woman, who also thirsted, and came to the well for water. He said to her, “People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:13-14 NLT)

Not yet recognizing her own spiritual thirst or Jesus’ meaning, she said, “‘Please, sir,’ the woman said, ‘give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again.’” (John 4:15 NLT)

When we, today, read this account in our Bibles, we understand that the Lord’s offering of refreshing, spiritual waters, is not from without, but from within, and satisfies eternally more than an oasis on the backside of the scorched Sahara desert.

As Christians, we have the privilege of sitting by the well of our Father when we crave this Living Water for our arid spirits, lowering our buckets into that well to quench our spiritual thirst, to regain our strength and power, and to rest until every thought of care, confusion, or depression is lifted.

When you become tired from your journey and your weary soul shrivels up, feeling bone-dry, what do you do? When every last drop of spiritual vitality has evaporated, do you take advantage and dip your bucket into a well to replenish your parched spirit and soul? But which well…the world’s well of lifeless drivel or the Father’s well of Living Water?

When in your arid condition, do you hear the Lord whisper His invitation to you, “Come, sit by the well”?

Prayer: Lord, when life’s trials and schedules overwhelm me, remind me to come sit with You by the well of the Father, that I may drink of those thirst-quenching, Living Waters to replenish my soul and spirit. Amen.